The fifth discipline
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The document discusses Peter Senge's book "The Fifth Discipline" which argues that learning organizations require five core disciplines - systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. It provides definitions and explanations of these disciplines, with a focus on systems thinking involving understanding organizational patterns and leveraging them, and personal mastery as continually expanding one's ability to achieve desired results through commitment to truth. The disciplines together can help organizations adapt to changing environments through improved learning.
The fifth discipline
- 1. 1 The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
- 2. 2 Some Questions? Why do so many business strategies fail? Why do so many others fail to produce lasting results? Why do many businesses suffer from periodic crises and fluctuating sales, earnings, and morale? Why do some firms grow while others stagnate? How do once-dominant firms lose their competitive edge? And how can a firm identify and design high-leverage policies, policies that are not thwarted by unanticipated side effects? …?
- 3. 3 What the Change does! Accelerating economic, technological, social, and environmental change challenge managers to learn at increasing rates. We must increasingly learn how to design and manage complex systems with multiple feedback effects, long time delays, and nonlinear responses to our decisions .
- 4. 4 Learning Effective learning in such environments requires methods to represent and assess such dynamic complexity and tools managers can use to accelerate learning throughout an organization
- 5. 5 Learning is a Must! We must increasingly learn how to design and manage complex systems with multiple feedback effects, long time delays, and nonlinear responses to our decisions. Effective learning requires methods and tools which people can use to accelerate learning.
- 6. 6 Extraordinary Organizations… Are those that engage people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in the organization Will recognize that the only truly sustainable competitive advantage is the rate at which organizations learn Nothing compares to the exhilaration that comes from working within learning orgs.
- 8. 8 Real World Information FeedbackDecisions Mental Models of the Real World Strategy, Structure, Decision Rules Single Loop Learning
- 9. 9 Real World Information Feedback Real World Information FeedbackDecisions Mental Models of the Real World Strategy, Structure, Decision Rules Double Loop Learning
- 10. 10 Real World - Unknown Structure - Dynamic Complexity - Time Delays - Inability to conduct controlled experiments Mental Models - Misperceptions of feedback - Unscientific reasoning - Judgmental biases - Defensive routines Information Feedback - Selective perception - Missing feedback - Delay - Bias, distortion, error - Ambiguity Strategy, Structure, Decision Rules - Inability to infer dynamics from mental models Decisions - Implementation failure - Game playing - Inconsistency - Performance is goal Sterman, 2000, Figure 1-12 Impediments to Learning
- 11. 11 Design Implement Assess Observe Individual Learning Individual Mental Models Individual Mental Models Role-constrained Learning Superstitious Learning Audience Learning Opportunistic Learning Superficial Learning Fragmented Learning Environmental Response Individual ActionIndividual Action Single-loop Learning Organizational Learning Circle Shared Mental Models Organizational Action Double-loop Learning
- 12. 12 Learning Organization "Organisations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together"
- 13. Definition DEFINITION OF SYSTEM THEORY: System theory is basically concerned with problems of relationships, of structures, and of interdependence, rather than with the constant attributes of object (Katz and Kahn, 1966).
- 14. Characteristics Haas & Drabek (1973) described eight characteristics of organizations as open systems: Organizations are systems within systems The systems are open, they cannot survive in isolation from their environment Open systems follow the principle of equifinality, i.e., the same final state can be reached from different starting positions in different ways
- 15. Characteristics (continued) Open systems have feedback and regulatory mechanisms that allow adaptive responses to environmental change Open systems should be viewed as patterned sets of events Open systems have boundaries that differentiate them from various environments, the boundaries vary in permeability, i.e. what and how can get through, and the situation at hand
- 16. Characteristics (continued) System interaction, internally and externally, reflects differing levels of control and autonomy The open systems perspective is not reductionistic – you cannot explain what happens in the organization by focusing on individual parts
- 17. Critique One of the criticisms of the open systems perspective is that the concepts are difficult to operationally define (Haas & Drabek, 1973) Peter M. Senge (2006) attempts to address this criticism in his 2006 edition of The fifth discipline
- 18. The Fifth Discipline Senge (2006) used Katz & Kahn’s (1966) definition and Hass & Drabek’ s (1973) characteristics in his work on the art and practice of the learning organization. He argues that there are five core disciplines necessary for a learning organization: personal mastery, mental models, shared visions, team learning, and systems thinking
- 19. 19 Disciplines of the Learning Organization Systems Thinking Personal Mastery Mental Models Shared Vision Team Learning
- 20. Personal Mastery “Personal mastery” is the phrase we use for the discipline of personal growth and learning. People with high levels of personal mastery are continually expanding their ability to create the results in life that they truly seek (Senge, 2006, p. 131)
- 21. Underlying Movements Continually clarifying what is important to you. Continually learning how to see current reality more clearly. Commitment to truth, “it means a relentless willingness to root out the ways we limit or deceive ourselves from seeing what is, and to continually challenge our theories of why things are the way they are” (Senge, 2006, p. 148).
- 22. Personal Mastery & Systems Thinking “… integrating reason and intuition; continually seeing more of our connectedness to the world; compassion; and commitment to the whole” (Senge, 2006, p. 156).
- 23. Mental Models Our mental models determine what we see and what we do not see. They are the symbols that we use to mentally process the environment in which we function.
- 24. Mental Model Tools & Skills Pay attention to the distinction between espoused theories (what we say) and theories-in-use (the implied theory in what we do) Recognizing leaps of abstraction – attribution Balancing inquiry and advocacy Pay attention to what we think, but do not say (Senge, 2006)
- 25. Systems Thinking Understand the patterns of behavior in your organization. Figure out how to gain leverage/influence of the patterns in your organization
- 26. References Von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). Passages from General Systems Theory. Retrieved from http://www.panarchy.org/vonbertalanffy/system Haas, J. E. and Drabek, T. E. (1973). Complex organizations: A sociological perspective. New York, NY: MacMillan.
- 27. References (continued) Katz, D. and Kahn, R. L. 1966. The social psychology of organizations. New York, NY: Wiley. Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday